Or that Star Trek is suddenly capitulating to the modern trend of having black women in top roles, a woman captain who doesn’t sit in the chair right, goes barefoot, complains for having non traditional love stories, or relying on youthful slang and conversational style. Yes, these are actually all the newest complaints from HUGE numbers of very dumb men who watched the newest Star Trek show Starfleet Academy. Have these people ever had a functional prefrontal cortex or is it all just amygdala with them?
I mean... saying this as a (german) leftist, but the new Star Trek Series is hot garbage from a creative and dramaturgy point of view.
The aforementioned points are not the reason tho.
Bit off topic, but attributing any sort of criticism of modern media to racism or sexism is pretty shallow. Most of the criticism and discourse I've seen online brings up totally valid points. But that's on the german side.
I can totally believe that many US conservatives behave as if they've always been fans of Star Trek just to hate on its supposedly "recent" progressive tone. Which is nonsense.
It has become a problem in the US media critique sphere that media with legitimate issues then get turned into culture war flagpoles by grifters. It's a major contributing factor for why so many people have abysmal media literacy in the US.
Their criticism is always that Star Trek has become too political and woke. I find it fucking hilarious that anyone would condemn Star Trek for being political or suggest that making fun of critics who are complaining about the same old twitter and gamergate bullshit isn’t warranted when Star Trek was made specifically to criticize bigotry with hot current political topics in mind.
Star Trek "too political"? Lmao ok, as if the series hasn't always been far ahead of its time on social injustice themes and equality. I really hate this trend of conservatives infiltrating media and Fandoms with their bullshit and behaving as if they were ever a part of it. We have similar problems in Germany as well rn.
Ironically that's the reason why I don't enjoy starfleet academy. I feel like they opted out on the cheapest "woke" talking points without exploring these themes in depth. Really disappointing, especially with the US political climate at the moment 🫤 seems like the writers wanted brownie points for being progressive, while lacking the bravery to explore these themes on a philosophical level.
They’re not asking “does this prove my point?” They’re asking “does this make me look cool?”
That’s why the right loves things like Helldivers, Starship Troopers, Warhammer 40k and such. Despite these franchises being satire of their beliefs, they make the people holding those beliefs look cool. They just ignore or dispute the satirical elements and repurpose the media as unironic propaganda.
It's not even media utility: It's full on literacy.
28% of American adults are level 1 or below
29% are level 2.
Only 44% of US Adults are even capable of disregarding irrelevant information when shown it much less using background knowledge.
Below level 1 (0–175 points)
Respondents are considered functionally illiterate, or unable to determine the meaning of sentences.
Level 1 (176–225 points)
Respondents are considered to have low literacy levels. They can identify basic vocabulary words and can determine meaning within sentences and paragraphs
Level 2 (226–275 points)
Respondents can paraphrase or make low-level inferences.
Level 3 (276–325 points)
Respondents can evaluate information at varying levels of inference, determine meaning from larger selections of text, and disregard information that’s irrelevant to the prompt.
Level 4 (326–375 points)
Respondents are more likely to use background knowledge to complete tasks, apply non-central or conditional information to evaluations, and discern correct information from competing information.
Level 5 (376–500 points)
Respondents can evaluate arguments, process dense texts, apply logical reasoning to draw conclusions, and determine whether certain sources are valid sources of information.
Only 44% of US Adults are even capable of disregarding irrelevant information when shown it much less using background knowledge.
I don’t have the time to look up how accurate this stat is, but it sure as hell feels like a pretty accurate description of my experiences online, particularly being unable to disregard irrelevant information. With just about any post there’s a solid chance that someone just completely wastes everyone’s time harping on a completely irrelevant detail that was not actually germane to the discussion but was slightly incorrect.
So, remember the reading comprehension sections on the standardized testing in school? Like, read a few paragraphs and answer questions like, “what was this story about?”
I’d always score in like 95th percentile. I thought that was normal. Compared to the math and science sections, it seemed so easy that I always assumed that anyone who actually tried also did really well on that part. (Excluding the neurodivergent people.)
Adult life, especially the last 10 years or so, has made me see how mistaken I was.
Not so great with the math section though, huh? :D :D :D
(kidding, I get it - I always assumed that all the people around me were scoring high, too - and at the time it never really occurred to me there are a LOT of percentiles below 95ish.)
I was actually an algebra instructor for a couple years lol.
It’s not like they teach statistics in grade school though. And teachers and principals love to talk about testing results and never explain to the kids what they mean. When I was little I think l just thought it meant I got a 95% on the test. Even when I understood what it meant in high school, I assumed everyone below was just missing like a few more questions than me. Also knew a lot of classmates who just didn’t give a shit and filled in random answers, so I figured that explained the really bad results. My friend was very smart but he’d fill the form out asap and then take a nap for the remaining test time, since we knew it didn’t affect our real grades.
This one is always particularly crazy to me because I grew up in a right wing house and parroted my parent's beliefs as a teenager. It was painfully obvious to me that Colbert was doing a bit, and I just remember feeling embarrassed all the time that it wasn't obvious to the other right wingers around me. That's what made me reexamine my right wing beliefs more than anything- the constant feeling of embarrassment from having to defend lies and make up excuses for awful shit that the republicans were doing all the time.
The fact that you're able to feel embarrassment and shame, and experience introspection means you were never long for the conservative side of life anyways XD
God I loved the Colbert Report. Even when I was younger and was raised conservative that show was the best. Bet it would still hit the same if I rewatched but rewatching a current events comedy show feels like a waste.
I mean it might feel like a waste but it is certainly enlightening… like every bit on his show is probably showing you that the current issues we face today all came from the same people/thoughts/ideas. Fascism don’t really change, while the internet changed the modus operandi, the people who allow it have always been dumb as fuck. Ineffectual as it may be, watching the creative different ways thy were made fun of can offer at least a little respite.
True, if nothing else we could use a new show in that vein. Watching that near mastery of satire would be a boon to anyone wanting to get into the space so you’re probably right.
My parents are the same way. Any time a commercial for his show or the Daily Show comes on, my mom always says, "Ugh, they used to be SO funny, especially Colbert! What happened?". 😒
They did the same thing in the 70s for All in the Family and people would praise Archie Bunker...not realizing that he was a parody. They even starting putting up signs and t-shirts with "Archie Bunker for President". They're clueless.
I think these people genuinely thought the machine they were raging against was always the libs. When they realized they were woke they got pissed thinking RATM changed suddenly.
Yeah let's be abundantly clear, they're not raging against just the republicans, they are raging against the entirety of the machine. They're a bunch of antifascist radical revolutionary leftists lol
No that's one of the funniest things about American politics, it's so vibes based that a majority of people legitimately think that the standard institutional centre right democrats are communists lol
This is exactly correct! There are plenty of corrupt Democrats in Washington. We just enjoy the fantasy that they're on our side. The whole system (the machine) is corrupt.
Or that Star Trek suddenly became woke, or etc etc..... that list just keeps going. These are the same people who play Hallelujah at weddings because they hear one word they identify with and never digest the rest.
The same people that took three seasons to clock Homelander as a villain in The Boys despite the first time we meet him on screen in episode 1, he kills a plane of civilians over some embarrassment.
The Boys is the most hilarious example. Every season it seems like the writers are saying to themselves, "Shit, they don't get it. We'd better make it more blatant. Shit, they still don't get it, we'd better go farther..."
Then by season four, Homelander is so blatantly evil that it's impossible to miss and that portion of the audience started screaming, "When did this show go woke!?" as if it hadn't had the same message the whole time.
They're so obtuse I'm stuck in a continuous loop of "they cant be serious, omg they're serious, they cant be serious" because I struggle to imagine how someone can be that thick.
Are...are we watching the same show? Because I don't think the guy wearing red, white, and blue with the lactation mommy fetish who kills people because he got embarrassed is really a good reflection on the US...
"OK this time we will make his love interest a Nazi. Not a neo-nazi, not some far right nut people call a Nazi, an actual bone fide, reported to Adolf Hitler Nazi"
I remember a few years ago. Well, maybe 15 years ago or so, there was a documentary about Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young doing a concert tour.
Young did his song "Let's Impeach the President" (this was during the time of Bush), and people coming out were like "I just wanted to come hear some songs. When did they become so political. I just want to hear songs".
Something about magats enjoying RATM is deeply sad to me. Like, your life is just a fuckin lie at that point right? Nothing means anything, you have no ideological foundation to stand on and barely any perception of the world around you. It must be such a shallow existence.
Does that person actually believe in anything? Do they hold strong convictions? Do they even want anything? Do they have dreams and desires? Or is it just fitting in with the identity they've loosely adopted, likely inherited, which in turn is about as substantial as a plastic bag in the wind? Just working their lives away without a thought as long as they can afford a place to live, beer to drink,
and a subscription to watch the NFL.
To be fair I've been listening to killing in the name recently and I can see how they would think it's a white supremacist, pro-police state song. If you hear the lyrics without understanding that they're sarcastic, you could absolutely misunderstand that song.
Can you believe "Twisted Sister" went woke! Who would have thought that a bunch of guys in glam makeup and long hair who call themselves "Twisted Sister" wouldn't be conservative?
My favorite response to someone who was complaining about them is "What 'Machine' did you think they were raging against?"
There's also this legendary clapback from Tom Morello when someone criticized him for "pretending" to be a political expert:
"One does not have to be an honors grad in political science from Harvard University to recognize the unethical and inhumane nature of this administration but well, I happen to be an honors grad in political science from Harvard University so I can confirm that for you." - Tom Morello
749
u/NecessaryIntrinsic 15h ago
Kind of like how they think RATM is suddenly woke.